Dr McNeill graduated from Queen's University, Belfast in 1982. He trained in general medicine and cardiology within Northern Ireland and during his time as a Royal Victoria Hospital Research Fellow he published on the use of Tissue Plasminogen Activator in the treatment of acute myocardial infarction, including the use of pre-hospital thrombolytic therapy, which formed the basis of his MD thesis. He was a British Heart Foundation, British Dutch Research Fellow in the Thorax Centre, Rotterdam where he published on stress echocardiography and developed the Dobutamine/Atropine stress echo protocol. He was appointed Consultant Cardiologist in Altnagelvin Hospital, Londonderry in 1992 and is currently Lead Clinician for Cardiology in the Western Health & Social Care Trust. From October 2016 he assumed the role of President of the Irish Cardiac Society and is currently the Northern Ireland elected member of Council of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and holds Fellowships of the Royal College of Physicians of London, the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, the European Society of Cardiology and the American College of Cardiology. In his role as Lead Clinician for Cardiology he has managed the development of primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI) on the Altnagelvin site, one of 2 centres providing PPCI for the province and recently managed the development of cross border PCI for Donegal patients. He is co-chairman of the Trust Smokefree Board which has developed the first smokefree Trust policy in Northern Ireland.